Release Information

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: TUESDAY, FEB. 8, 2011

Census Bureau Reports a 61 Percent Increase in the Number of Black-Owned Businesses in the New York Metro Area

The number of black-owned businesses in the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa., metropolitan statistical area increased to 234,023 in 2007 from 145,517 in 2002, a 60.8 percent increase, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. Over the same period, receipts generated by these businesses increased 67.9 percent to $14.7 billion. Nationally, the number of black-owned businesses rose to 1.9 million, a 60.5 percent increase, and sales by these businesses increased to $137.5 billion, a 55.1 percent increase.

Industries in the metro area with the largest number of black-owned businesses included health care and social assistance (48,639 businesses); repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services (41,635 businesses); and transportation and warehousing (29,769 businesses).

These new data come from the 2007 Survey of Business Owners, which is part of the 2007 Economic Census. This survey provides detailed information every five years for black-owned businesses, including the number of firms, sales and receipts, number of paid employees and annual payroll for states, counties, cities and metropolitan areas.

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The Survey of Business Owners is conducted every five years as part of the economic census. The 2007 survey collected data from a sample of more than 2.3 million businesses. Data collected in a sample survey are subject to sampling variability, as well as nonsampling errors. Sources of nonsampling errors include errors of response, nonreporting and coverage. More details concerning the SBO survey design, methodology and data limitations can be found at <https://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/methodology.html>.